Being a Part of the Detroit SheTown Film Festival Family

I am starting to write this blog on an airplane on the way home from the Detroit SheTown Film Festival.  I had planned to move on to writing about the early days of Avodah and life in Tallahassee in the 1970’s but that will have to wait until the following week.  Healing Voices – Personal Stories is the non-profit I founded (and am a part of) that makes films related to domestic violence.  We have been very honored to be in over seven film festivals.  Each one has its own unique character, and WOW is the only word I can use to express the SheTown Festival and how honored we are to have had “Jeannine’s Story” a part of it.

Over the past several weeks you have been reading about Jeannine and the role she played in Let My People Go and other Avodah Dance Ensemble activities.  During the years I was in New York City I never could have imagined that I would be co-directing and producing films or that Jeannine would be the focus of one of them.  How Healing Voices was formed and its history will have to wait until another blog.  For right now I want to share how we came to do a film on Jeannine and what this weekend was like.

Once or twice a year I get to New York City.  Planning my fall 2015 trip I noticed on Facebook that Jeannine and her partner Larry were doing a cabaret act at the same time I would be there. I shared this with my good friend Linda Kent, whom I enjoy spending time with in NYC, and we decided to catch the performance.  And what a wonderful evening it was.  Afterwards I had a few minutes to visit with Jeannine. She asked me what I was up to and I shared that I had formed a non-profit film company making films about domestic violence survivors.  Jeannine quietly said, “I have a story to tell you.”  My heart sank… that is not what I want to hear from a friend.

Jeannine shared her story with me and I knew we wanted to film it.  Our goal is to show how survivors have reshaped their lives overcoming abuse.  We arranged for Jeannine and Larry to come to Santa Fe.  They generously performed in a fundraising event which we filmed. Jeannine included two of her original songs as part of the evening and we were able to include them in the film. The next day we filmed Jeannine sharing her story. It is now a ten-minute film.  We have submitted it to a few festivals and were thrilled to receive news that it would be in the Detroit Shetown Film Festival which was held last week from September 13^th– 16^th.

Lindarose Berkley, a board member of Healing Voices and a co-producer, decided to go too. When we go, we do it at our own expense as we want to keep all the very generous donations strictly for filmmaking.  I was lucky to have frequent flyer miles to cover this trip.

I am thrilled to report this was an amazing experience filled with warmth, networking, outstanding films, and good audiences. This was the first year of the festival, under the excellent leadership of Mandy Looney and Mike Madigan. All of the entries had to meet at least one of the following criteria:

“A female lead actress/role
A Female-centric Story/Documentary Issue
Female Director, Director of Photography
Female Screenwriter, Editor
Female Producer or Co-Producer”
From Detroit SheTown Film Festival website.

We understand that there were over 300 films submitted from all over the world.  We were honored to be among the ones chosen. I decided to submit because we met their criteria and Jeannine grew up in Detroit.  When we got the email notifying us that our film had been selected, we were thrilled.  Of course, among the first things I did was to call Jeannine and see if she could join us.  Alas, it was a busy time for her in New York so she couldn’t

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Filmmaker’s Badge for the Festival

From the touring days of Avodah, I learned to reach out to see if I could get more “bookings” in the area — in this case, chances to meet with people in the domestic violence community in the Detroit area.  Much to my surprise it took only one call to Michigan’s Coalition for Domestic and Sexual Violence.  Speaking with the Executive Director, Sarah Prout Rennie, I explained why we would be in Detroit and that we wanted to learn more about the services that the community offered as well as share a little about Healing Voices and how our films could be streamed or downloaded free of charge from the Internet. She immediately put us in touch with Scott Zochowski, Membership, Marketing and Fund Development Manager. He suggested a lunch on Friday to meet and learn about what services are available for victims/survivors in Detroit.  And what an outstanding group of dedicated individuals Scott brought together.  We learned about La Vida, an organization focused on serving the Hispanic Community.  The two young women from La Vida were filled with such enthusiasm it was indeed very refreshing. A new staff member of the Coalition had just left a job as director of the Michigan Asian Indian Family Services.  Another woman was on the staff of the Detroit Shelter and another person focused on diversity training in the field of Sexual Abuse. It was a very informative, lively lunch and Lindarose and I look forward to keeping in touch with those we met. They were thrilled to learn about “Jeannine’s Story” as well as the other films we made.

Poster for the film. Here’s a link where you can watch the film.

We had arrived Thursday, the night before, for the Festival’s Opening Night Party. Before we headed to the party I was a bit worried that Lindarose and I would feel like the grandmas there, many years older then the other filmmakers.  Much to our delight there was a lot of diversity, including in ages.  That evening we met three people in particular that we would hang out with the next several days.

Friday night began with an opening panel of four women film directors and they excellently covered a lot of ground focusing on the challenges of being a woman in an industry so dominated by men.  Following the panel, a selection called “Taste of the Festival” kept us laughing and crying.  From the first to the last film, we watched intently.  My favorite was a documentary about a group of women actors/comedians from Toronto called HerBeaver: Behind the Bush. We continued to meet more filmmakers and I loved how supportive each one was and interested in what others were doing.  We enthusiastically attended each other’s showing blocks.

The next day started with the documentary block, and how honored we were to be a part of it. Following the showing of 8 documentaries, the filmmakers who were in attendance were invited up for a Q and A. We each introduced ourselves. One of the questions we were asked was how long a documentary should be.  I answered by going back to composition classes at Juilliard, particularly with Louis Horst who so clearly insisted that each dance movement had to relate to the theme we had introduced at the beginning of the study.  That is one of the guiding things for me – that as we edit the transcripts of our films and build the storyline, we need to stay focused on the purpose of the film.  In Jeannine’s case it was really important to make sure that the arts, and in particular music were clearly woven throughout as that is so much a part of her healing.

As we attended more sessions we continued to be held spellbound at the incredible films and deepen our friendship with other filmmakers.

I look forward to following the careers of two young filmmakers.  Kennikki Jones just completed her MFA in Film from Florida State University and her film Help Wanted was included in the Opening Night: Taste of SheTown.  A Call to Action directed by Krisilyn Frazier struck a strong note for me in her use of modern dance movement interwoven between the speaking of a Holocaust survivor and a professor from the University of Michigan.

And then there were two seasoned professionals that we look forward to keeping in touch with too. Lynda Reiss has been a TV prop master best known for her work on shows such as Stranger Things and True Detective.  She is now transitioning into the role of Director and what a great start she is off to with Ready to Go, about a man on his way to put his cat down.  Eileen Kearny won best actress in the festival for her role in House Rules which she wrote, produced and starred in.

Thank you Mindy and Mike for putting together such an outstanding women’s film festival. And we very much cherish being a part of the Detroit SheTown Film Festival family.  And to Jeannine, thank you for sharing your story so that it can help others to heal.